Kristeva Julia - The Portable Kristeva

The Portable Kristeva

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

European Perspectives

A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
Lawrence D. Kritzman, Editor

European Perspectives presents outstanding books by leading European thinkers. With both classic and contemporary works, the series aims to shape the major intellectual controversies of our day and to facilitate the tasks of historical understanding.

For a complete list of books in the series, see .

The Porta ble Kristeva

UPDATED EDITION

Kelly Oliver, Editor

Columbia University Press
New York

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2002 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-51806-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kristeva, Julia, 1941

The portable Kristeva / Kelly Oliver, editor. Updated ed.

p. cm. (European perspectives)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 023112628X. (cl : alk. paper) ISBN 0231126298 (ppr : alk. paper)

1. Semiotics. 2. Language and languagesPhilosophy. 3. Psychoanalysis. 4. Identity (Psychology) 5. Women. I. Oliver, Kelly.
II. Title. III. Series.

P99.K694 2002

808.00141dc21

2002018722

Columbia University Press gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint from the following:

My Memorys Hyperbole by Julia Kristeva. Copyright New York Literary Forum, 1984. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Revolution in Poetic Language by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1984. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpt from Desire in Language by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1980. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Time and Sense by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1996. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Tales of Love by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1987. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpt from Black Sun by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1989. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from New Maladies of the Soul by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1995. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Powers of Horror by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1982. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Strangers to Ourselves by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 1991. Reprinted with permission of Columbia University Press and Pearson Education Limited..

Interview with Elaine Hoffman Baruch originally published under the title Julia Kristeva in Women Analyze Women: In France, England, and the United States, edited by Baruch and Lucienne J. Serrano. Copyright New York University Press, 1988. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpt from Hannah Arendt by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 2001. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpt from The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 2000. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Intimate Revolt by Julia Kristeva. Copyright Columbia University Press, 2002. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

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Contents

This collection of Julia Kristevas writings is designed to give the reader a representative selection from all her major works over the last two decades. The selections were chosen to reflect Kristevas most significant contributions to the human sciences, including philosophy, literary theory, linguistics, cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory, and feminist theory. In these selections, Kristeva introduces the terminology and conceptual framework with which she goes on to analyze texts, music, visual arts, language, and culture. These selections, then, include her most important theoretical innovations, but they do not include her fiction or detailed applications of her techniques to art and literature. Still, this volume will introduce the reader to the methodology and terminology that inform all Kristevas writings.

The selections are ordered topically but the original publication dates are included in the table of contents for readers who prefer to read chronologically. I have divided the texts under six topics: (1) Kristevas Trajectory; (2) The Subject in Signifying Practice; (3) Psychoanalysis of Love: A Counterdepressant; (4) Individual and National Identity; (5) Maternity, Feminism, and Female Sexuality; and (6) Revolt and Imagination. Much of Kristevas writing, however, touches on several issues at once, so many of these selections could have been placed under different topics. For example, the discussion of the semiotic chora from Revolution in Poetic Language, in , include Kristevas ongoing formulations of subjectivity and signification. The reader may want to refer to the introduction before each part to get a sense of some of the issues addressed in each selection.

In addition to the six introductions, I have included a general introduction in which I discuss one of Kristevas most revolutionary contributions to the human sciences as it evolves throughout her writings, her attempt to bring the speaking body back into theoretical discourse. The Portable Kristeva begins with Kristevas autobiographical essay My Memorys Hyperbole, originally published as Mmoires in 1983. In this provocative essay, Kristeva describes her intellectual trajectory since her arrival in Paris in December 1965. The introduction before each part also gives more information about Kristevas intellectual trajectory.

Julia Kristeva was born in Bulgaria in 1941. Although her education in Eastern Europe familiarized her with Marxism and Russian, she was introduced to Western thought and French in her early education by French nuns. Before leaving Bulgaria to continue her education in Paris, Kristeva worked as a journalist for a communist newspaper. She went to Paris in December 1965 on a doctoral research fellowship to work with Lucien Goldmann in Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne, where she also worked with Roland Barthes and Claude Lvi-Strauss. Within one year Kristevas articles were being published in Critique, Langages, and Tel Quel. She became involved with the Tel Quel group and later married the head of the group, novelist Philippe Sollers. They had a son in 1976. In 1970 she was appointed to the editorial board of Tel Quel, where she served until the journal was disbanded in 1983 and became the journal Infini.

Since her first book, Smiotik: Recherches pour une smanalyse, was published in 1969, Julia Kristeva has become one of the most prolific theorists in France. The importance of her writing over the past two decades has been felt across the human sciences. The impact of her doctoral dissertation, published as La Rvolution du langage potique in 1974, is still being felt. Although the influence of psychoanalysis is manifest in her earliest work, which includes Smiotik (1969), Le Texte du roman (1970), Rvolution (1974), and Polylogue (1977), this work is centered around linguistic analysis, including empirical studies. Her interest in psychoanalytic theory led her to complete training in psychoanalysis in 1979. While interest in language still motivates her work, her writings of the 1980s and 1990s reflect her training and practice as a psychoanalyst. She still maintains her psychoanalytic practice.